As sustainable development practices expand among companies, innovation appears more and more as a required path to progress towards the integration of ecological concerns at the very heart of business activities. Ecodesign not only requires this integration but can also be a concrete tool for its implementation (Le Pochat, 2005). Our results show that while implementing ecodesign practices, companies mobilize existing competences, that they combine with new ones. These new competences originate from exploration-orientated external cooperations. This original combination of competences paves the way for an internal research, made mostly of exploitation but still including some exploration projects. Long-term continuous innovation (Verona, Ravasi, 2003) requires an appropriate balance between exploration and exploitation. The litterature refers to this balance as « ambidexterity ». The present paper provides evidence for a competence development process associated to the implementation of ecodesign. By combining contextual and network ambidexterity, this process promotes a continuous stream of innovation.

Judging from the number of communities and cities striving or claiming to be sustainable and how often eco-development is invoked as the means for urban regeneration, it appears that sustainable and eco-development have become “the leading paradigm within urban development” (Whitehead 2003). But what is it that is driving these urban transformations? Clearly, there are many probable answers to this complex question and in what follows we will focus on one particular catalyst of change – urban design competitions. Considered as field changing events (Lampel & Meyer 2008, Anand and Jones 2008), urban design competitions are understudied mechanisms for bringing about field level changes. This paper examines how urban design competitions can bring about changes within two types of fields – professional fields and local geographical fields. The context for our study is urban regeneration in two cities in France and Denmark, both of which have been suffering from industrial decline and have invested in establishing “eco-districts”. Based on these two case studies we explore how the different parties involved in these urban development projects have developed innovative design templates and practices that can instantiate field level changes.

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This paper focuses on three related matters. It analyses the process of competition in the software
industry, this being important both in itself and for the light it throws on competition within all
industries characterised by low or zero marginal costs and a high rate of technical development. The
software industry, operating under private enterprise, is dependent on copyright, and the issues raised
by intellectual property protection are therefore also considered. Given the need for inter-operability
between different software products, and between these and associated hardware, standardisation is
important within the industry, and the processes by which standards may be established are evaluated.
Consideration is given to the public policy issues that are raised by these three topics.

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In overlapping-generations economies with perfect financial markets and lumpsum
taxation, restrictions on the government budget deficits do not limit the
set of achievable allocations. For economies in which tax instruments are distortionary
and limited in number, deficits are irrelevant only in the unrealistic
case in which the number of tax instruments is large relative to the number
of policy goals. In particular, if the government can use only anonymous consumption
taxes, then achieving the prescribed deficits without changing the
equilibrium allocation will typically be impossible when the number of consumers
exceeds the number of commodities. A similar result holds if consumer
credit is (exogenously) restricted. Surprisingly, in this case, distortionary taxes
may be more likely than lump-sum taxes to lead to the irrelevance of government
deficits. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D51,
D91, E32.
Keywords: Balanced Budget, Balanced-Budget Amendment, Burden of the Public Debt,
Comparative Statics, Consumption Taxes, Credit Restrictions, Distortionary Taxes, Economic
Policy, Government Budget Deficit, Maastricht Treaty, Optimal Taxation, Overlapping
Generations.

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The purpose of this paper is to analyze strategic policy implications arising from possible threats and opportunities in the face of the emergence of China as an economic powerhouse. The focus of the paper is not on the regional approach through mainly regional co-operations but more on policy strategies and responses at the national level. Depending on their degree of national economic development, economic structure and comparative advantage, eight strategic positionings have been identified. Of these eight positionings, direct competition is considered as an unwise move, considering China being endowed with relatively cheap labour resources. Together with its huge domestic market which can serve as a magnet for direct foreign investment, competition in attracting FDI can be a daunting task for most to the Southeast Asian countries. Instead, competition based on niche areas through branding, for instance provides a feasible alternative. The other alternative is to avoid direct competition by upgrading its economy, venturing into those areas where China has no comparative advantage as well as looking inward for sources of growth. Others may adopt ‘connecting’ strategies such as complementing or supplementing the Chinese economy by meeting China’s increasing demand for natural resources or exploiting its huge domestic market. Still others may explore the possibilities of forging strategic alliance with China in the global market or playing the role of a middleman between China the West.

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While much attention has been devoted to analyzing how the institutional framework and entrepreneurship impact growth, how economic policy and institutional design affect entrepreneurship appears to be much less analyzed. We try to explain cross-country differences in the level of entrepreneurship by differences in economic policy and institutional design. Specifically, we use the measures of economic freedom to ask which elements of economic policy making and the institutional framework that are responsible for the supply of entrepreneurship (our data on entrepreneurship are derived from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor). The combination of these two datasets is unique in the literature. We find that the size of government is negatively correlated with entrepreneurial activity but that sound money is positively correlated with entrepreneurial activity. Other measures of economic freedom are not significantly correlated with entrepreneurship.
JEL CODE: M13, O31, O50
KEYWORDS: Economic freedom, entrepreneurship, cross-country variation.

While much attention has been devoted to analyzing how the institutional framework and entrepreneurship impact growth, how economic policy and institutional design affect entrepreneurship appears to be much less analyzed. We try to explain cross-country differences in the level of entrepreneurship by differences in economic policy and institutional design. Specifically, we use measures of economic freedom from the Economic Freedom of the World database to examine which elements of economic policy making and the institutional framework are responsible for the supply of entrepreneurship Our data on entrepreneurship are derived from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. The combination of these two datasets is unique in the literature. We find that the size of government is negatively correlated with entrepreneurial activity but that sound money is positively correlated with entrepreneurial activity. Other measures of economic freedom are not significantly correlated with entrepreneurship.

This paper investigates to what extent income growth in the Chinese provinces is linked to growth and income levels in neighboring provinces. We find that the rate of income growth in a province is positively related to income and growth in neighboring provinces. However, we find no evidence of such positive interdependence between growth in rich coastal provinces and their immediate inland neighbors. This suggests that there has been little synchronization in economic growth rates between these regions, and/or that the immediate hinterland of the coastal growth centers might have been bypassed as China’s manufacturing sector has migrated westward.

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I critically discuss recent claims about economic organization in the emerging
“knowledge economy,” specifically that authority relations will tend to disappear
(or at least become radically transformed), the boundaries of the firm will blur,
and coordination mechanisms will be much more malleable than assumed in
organizational economics, resulting in various “new organizational forms.” In
particular, the price mechanism will be used inside hierarchies to a much greater
extent. In order to obtain an analytical focus on the knowledge economy, I
assume that it may be approximated by “Hayekian settings” (after Hayek 1945),
that is, settings in which knowledge is distributed and where knowledge inputs
are relatively more important in production than physical capital inputs. I then
argue, drawing on organizational economics as well as Mises’ insights in
property rights and comparative systems, that the presence of Hayekian settings
does not mean that authority will disappear, etc., although economic
organization will in fact be affected by the emergence of the knowledge
economy. This suggests that Austrian economics has an important contribution
to make to the study of economic organization.

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I critically discuss recent claims about economic organization in the emerging
“knowledge economy,” specifically that authority relations will tend to disappear
(or at least become radically transformed), the boundaries of the firm will blur,
and coordination mechanisms will be much more malleable than assumed in
organizational economics, resulting in various “new organizational forms.” In
particular, the price mechanism will be used inside hierarchies to a much greater
extent. In order to obtain an analytical focus on the knowledge economy, I
assume that it may be approximated by “Hayekian settings” (after Hayek 1945),
that is, settings in which knowledge is distributed and where knowledge inputs
are relatively more important in production than physical capital inputs. I then
argue, drawing on organizational economics as well as Mises’ insights in
property rights and comparative systems, that the presence of Hayekian settings
does not mean that authority will disappear, etc., although economic
organization will in fact be affected by the emergence of the knowledge
economy. This suggests that Austrian economics has an important contribution
to make to the study of economic organization.

Files in this item: 1

The purpose of the paper is to examine the economic impact of China on the Southeast Asian countries, mainly in terms of trade and investment. The paper attempts to examine whether the rise of China poses a threat to Southeast Asia as a region in the area of international trade, especially competition in the third markets. Can they be comrades rather than competitors in international market? Secondly, the paper also questions the concentration of foreign direct investment (FDI) in China implies a diversion of FDI away from the region. Are the FDI in China and Southeast Asian region complement each other in the international division of labour? On the other hand, the increasing role of China as an international trader and global investor provides an opportunity for Southeast Asia countries to integrate with the Chinese economy. The huge domestic market of China also provides vast opportunities for investment, especially through connections of their respective ethnic Chinese businesses in the region. In return, Southeast Asian countries, through their respective ethnic groups can also play a middleman role between China and the West, as well as between China and India together with the Middle East.

This article examines how economic shocks affect individual
well-being in developing countries. Using the case of a sudden
and unanticipated currency devaluation in Botswana as a
quasi-experiment, the article examines how this monetary
shock affects individuals’ evaluations of well-being. This is
done by using microlevel survey data, which—incidentally—
were collected in the days surrounding the devaluation.
The chance occurrence of the devaluation during the time
of the survey enables us to use pretreatment respondents,
surveyed before the devaluation, as approximate counterfactuals
for post-treatment respondents, surveyed after
the devaluation. Estimates show that the devaluation had
a large and significantly negative effect on individuals’
evaluations of subjective well-being. These results suggest
that macroeconomic shocks, such as unanticipated currency
devaluations, may have significant short-term costs
in the form of reductions in people’s sense of well-being.

This paper examines how economic shocks affect individual well-being in developing
countries. Using the case of a sudden and unanticipated currency devaluation in
Botswana as a quasi-experiment, we examine how this monetary shock affects
individuals’ evaluations of well-being. We do so by using micro-level survey data,
which – incidentally – was collected in the days surrounding the devaluation. The
chance occurrence of the devaluation during the time of the survey enables us to use
pre-treatment respondents, surveyed before the devaluation, as approximate
counterfactuals for post-treatment respondents, surveyed after the devaluation. Our
estimates show that the devaluation had a large and significantly negative effect on
individuals’ evaluations of subjective well-being. These results suggest that
macroeconomic shocks, such as unanticipated currency devaluations, may have
significant short-term costs in the form of reductions in people’s sense of well-being.